Fannie Mae Reports $3.6 Billion 4th Quarter Loss - ( uh oh....)

[Breeze54]

Fannie Mae Reports $3.6 Billion 4th Quarter Loss

http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=15497

Fannie Mae, the mortgage funding giant, Wednesday reported that it lost $3.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007, compared with a profit of $604 million in the comparable period a year earlier.

The deepening red ink reflected rising mortgage defaults, falling home prices, and "extraordinary disruptions in the credit markets," Fannie Mae chief executive Daniel H. Mudd said in a news release.

The fourth quarter woes helped drive Fannie Mae's annual loss for 2007 to $2.1 billion, compared with a profit of $4.1 billion for 2006.

The outlook for housing prices in general and Fannie Mae's financial performance in particular is worse than the company has been predicting, Fannie Mae said Wednesday.

Fannie Mae now expects average peak-to-trough declines in home prices of 13 to 17 percent before the market recovers, compared with its earlier predictions of 10 to 12 percent.

Despite that news, Fannie Mae's shares were up more than 5 percent in late morning trading after a federal regulatory agency announced that it will remove caps on investments by the company and its competitor Freddie Mac.

Chartered by the government but traded on the stock market, District-based Fannie Mae plays a major behind-the-scenes role in the nation's housing system. Fannie Mae pools mortgages into securities for sale to investors, promising to pay the principal and interest if the borrowers default. Fannie Mae also purchases mortgages and securities backed by mortgages for its own investment portfolio. As of December, the company's mortgage investments and guarantees totaled about $2.9 trillion.

The 2007 annual report was the first Fannie Mae had issued on a timely basis since it became mired in an accounting scandal in 2004. In the years since, the company has undertaken a massive effort to rebuild its internal systems to remedy pervasive weaknesses. With the filing of the report today, Fannie Mae declared its rebuilding complete.

Freddie Mac, which disclosed billions of dollars of accounting problems in 2003, has been through a similarly protracted recovery process and is scheduled to issue its annual results for 2007 tomorrow.

In light of those accomplishments, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said Wednesday that it will remove a limit on the size of Fannie Mae's portfolio that was imposed in 2006, when Fannie Mae agreed to pay a $400 million penalty for its improper accounting. OFHEO is also lifting the cap on Freddie Mac, effective March 1.

More.....

[TahitiNut]

1. ... and the dominoes continue to topple, picking up speed.

Meltdown. The Cheney/Bush termites have fed with abandon.

[Breeze54]

2. That termite analogy fits!

I'm no economist but if they lose or go under, we're pretty much screwed, right?

[TahitiNut]

5. The economy of the US is a $16 trillion/year machine.

It can handle a LOT of damage, but the worst problem it'd have would be a widespread public loss of confidence. As a "consumption-based" economy, static dollars are virtually useless. The measures of the "money supply" are based on circulation - each dollar received being spent, over and over and over and over again. When people stop spending and start hoarding, the gears of the machine stop turning. Cynicism is NOT a lubricant. One of the most fundamental reasons the New Deal worked is because it was coercive circulation - even if very, very small compared to the entire country. (This is part of the Keynesian perspective.) Another reason was due to the inspiration offered by FDR - the "bully pulpit." Such inspiration not only depended on the talents of FDR, but on the WILLINGNESS of the people to invest trust in him and his character in respecting that trust.

It'd go a LONG way to restore trust if the Cheney/Bush criminals were prosecuted. Unfortunately, the professional political class adheres to the opposite (self-serving) viewpoint. I believe they're wrong - as wrong as can be.

[Prefer]

3. Oh my god we're doomed

such a tragedy to see it all slipping away.

[SpiralHawk]

4. "We are adhering strictly to republicon economic principles. Smirk." - Fannie Mae